Your local indie music blog

June 15, 2017

Introducing: The Basement Effect

The Basement Effect are an indie rock outfit consisting of members Sam Jones, Harry Maitland, Ben Truman and Danny Doyle. Hailing from Liverpool, their focus is to bring the attention firmly back to their great city which helps form their gritty indie rock sound.

In the short time they’ve been going the band have already amassed a horde of loyal fans, sold out numerous venues and played with the likes of Circa Waves, Billy Bibby (former Catfish & The Bottlemen,) Reeves Gabrels (The Cure) and Amber Run gaining them attention from numerous industry professionals.

2017 is already looking very exciting for these boys. Watch out.

Tell me a bit about the origins of The Basement Effect?

Sam: Me and Harry (the drummer) met in school and started jamming together when we were 12. We learnt some AC/DC songs to get going and then learnt Sweet Child O’ Mine for a performance.

Harry: Yeah and then after that we added Ben who seemed happy to learn bass for us. We started busking in Liverpool and then started landing some gigs.

Coming from Liverpool, how’s it feel to come from a city with such a rich music history?

Danny: When you come from a city with such a big music reputation it’s hard not to be inspired. The reception to our music is so strong in Liverpool and you can’t help but think much that has come from bands like the Beetles and The Zutons who we are trying to follow in the footsteps of.

Ben: The music scene here is also really strong because the venues have watched smaller bands grow to be massive and that’s clearly what drives them to give less renowned bands gigs, especially in their early stages. We wouldn’t have been able to really get going if the venues didn’t take the smaller bands seriously.

As a band, who have been your influences?

Sam: As a band we have a pretty mixed music taste. I’m more into my classic rock, like Foo Fighters and G&R, but I know Harry is a big fan of modern indie music.

Ben: I like pretty much everything. The fact that we all enjoy so many different types of music gives us a chance to incorporate different aspects of modern and old stuff into our material.

Danny: Yeah, also like we said before, we take a lot of influences from bands that have come from Liverpool, like the Zutons.

Your track, Back To Here, from your latest EP is class, what’s the message behind this track? Tell me a bit the recording process?

Sam: Like every band, we’ve had some points in time where things were looking rough so I sort of wrote it with the idea that no matter how much you want to change something, you will always end up back where you started.

Ben: How positive.

Harry: We tend to record with the same formula every time. We go in with our track and record a rough take first. Then we build the rest of the recording around that, starting with drums and then bass. Then we add guitars and finish with the vocals.

How does it feel to record at such an iconic studio?

Danny: For me personally it’s going to be overwhelming, especially when one of my favourite bands, Queen, recorded there. Being a more recent addition to the band I just can’t wait to get into the studio with boys and make something we are really proud of.

How was the EP recieved by your following and new listerners?

Harry: Yeah, we like to think they enjoyed the EP. We wrote most of the songs quiet a long time before we recorded them as we were mainly concentrating on hammering the gigs and getting our live show together.

Sam: I guess the EP, largely, was about finding our feet. We didn’t really know what sound we wanted to go for so we just wanted to see where it took us. The fans response was great and I think they are largely to thank when it comes to the direction we are now following.

So you are currently waiting to record your debut album, what can we expect? What have you got lined for the rest of 2017?

Sam: Indie rock bangers. We have spent the last 12 months writing endlessly trying mix all our influences with a modern indie and feel and we hope people are going to like it as much as we do.

Ben: The music strays towards the darker side of indie, more indie rock. We love the idea of filling big rooms with noise, so we want to get the biggest sound possible out of the tracks.

Danny: Yeah, we spend our rehearsals dissecting the songs and re-writing them to get the feel we want. No we know the sort of direction we want to take, it makes the whole process more rewarding as everything sounds like us.

Harry: 2017 is going to be massive. We have a whole load of really exciting things to announce but we can’t say too much.

If you had to collaborate with any artist (dead or alive) who would it be?

Sam: Paul McCartney. Would be unreal to collaborate with someone who has played on the same circuit as we have when they were small. Being from Liverpool, you can’t help but want to collaborate with someone who has been so influential to the city’s music.

Danny : Iwould love to collaborate with someone like Yannis Philippakis just because I saw Foals last year and they are ridiculous.